The Gray Mask

CHAPTER III

IN THE STEEL ROOM

Garth's fingers played with the piece of white paper.

"You haven't told me where the house is," he said.

The moment the leader had answered Garth was standing on the bench. He waved his arm. Suddenly he blew out the lamp.

"On the dock!" he stammered to the darkness. "A noise!"

As the others crept to the door he scratched rapidly and silently with a match on the piece of paper the location of the house, the nature of the job, and an appeal for help. When he was through he heard the others coming back.

"If your nerves jump like that, Simmons, what a chance we'll have!" George said. "Not a sign. Light up."

Garth struck the match and relighted the lamp.

"I never take unnecessary risks," he said simply.

Nora, he knew, would guess that his excess of caution was a police trick. His eyes sought her anxiously as the lamp flamed, but she gave no sign. After a moment she whispered:

"Let's start. It – it frightens me here."

The leader opened the door.

"It's time," he said. "They're asleep in the house by now."

They followed him, threading obscure spaces and alleyways to the unlighted end of a street which deployed into a stone mason's yard, and always Garth asked:

"Will she whisper my life away to the others?"

A taxicab waited there. Garth man[oe]uvred so that he had a seat by the window. He let his hand, which clenched the piece of paper, dangle through. Such policemen as he saw were indifferent until crossing One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street he noticed one who looked straight at the cab. He let the paper flutter from his fingers, but he did not dare glance back to see if the policeman had picked it up.

The cab halted in a dark side street off Lexington Avenue. A man stepped from the shadows and waved his hand. They alighted and walked with an unconcern that surprised Garth to the servants' entrance of a large house. This Nora unlocked. They entered and waited in the alley while one by one the four from the boat slipped through after them.

Garth understood what these numbers meant. In order that Nora, George, and he might accomplish their task undisturbed, these men would bear to each inmate of the house chloroform, or, under necessity, something more permanently silencing.

Walking heavy-hearted through the alley at Nora's heels, one last saving possibility occurred to Garth. Could this be another police trick? It was likely that the inspector had denied him his full confidence. Could Nora be on the same errand as himself, working for her father?

When she had unlocked the house door he found himself brushing against her in the hall. Impulsively he reached down and clasped her hand. But her hand was like ice. She snatched it away. In her action and the sharp intake of her breath he felt his doubts resolved.

Then he was flung into a stealthy, sure, and dreadful whirlpool of action. He heard feline movements on the stairs, a muffled thud in the darkness ahead, from the second floor a shrill cry, all at once strangled and beaten back into the heavy silence.

He waited, panting. Upstairs someone rapped sharply three times. A pocket lamp flashed ahead, throwing a white shaft against finely-grained mahogany.

A hand in the shaft signalled him, and he crept forward until he stumbled over a round, inert mass which lay just outside the room where the white light searched the mahogany.

The light, wavering around to greet him, disclosed the obstacle. It was a man, deftly bound, and bandaged about the mouth, the ears, the eyes.

"Shut the door."

Garth closed the door on this disturbing vision.

The mahogany formed the doors of a large and very wide cabinet. George knelt in front of this, inserting slender, gleaming tools in the lock with the adroitness of a watchmaker. To one side Nora crouched, playing the light on his illicit undertaking.

George opened the doors and nodded to Garth. The light glowed now on the sleek, steel belly of a safe; and, as Garth, a trifle confused, reached out a steadying hand, he realized that the walls of this room were of steel, too. The cold, uncompromising feel of the metal was another warning to him. His only chance was that the safe might balk George for some time.

The man's first words, indeed, encouraged this hope.

"May take a little time," he muttered. "Might's well be comfortable, Simmons. Nora, toss us a couple of those sofa pillows."

Nora reached to the divan behind her and passed the cushions to George. He arranged one to his satisfaction before raising his hand to the combination.

"Plenty of time, isn't there?" Garth croaked anxiously.

"Ought to be," George answered. "Everything's covered now. Didn't expect to find the watchman where we did though. If he hadn't been half asleep – Nora, maybe you doped him at supper."

The girl gave no sign. She remained crouched at the side. She was like an animal, ready to spring at the first alarm.

Garth was aware of an unusual tension himself. It was not quite the suspense he had forecasted. Perhaps this sharing of criminal labor for the first time accounted for its nature. He appreciated the amount of courage demanded. He received, as it were, George's disturbing point of view of the moment.

Garth had caught a new stammering quality in the man's voice. He wondered at the perspiration which bathed his face in spite of the comfortable temperature of the room. He studied the shoulders, squared as for an attack, momentarily expected. Only the fingers at their facile work displayed no emotion.

Garth questioned if George always worked under this strain. Did any of the responsibility rest with this room? Since his first entrance over the prostrate form of the watchman, since his first touch of those unyielding walls, he had himself experienced a distaste for the apartment. This may have been accounted for in part by that single, brilliant shaft of light, which, illuminating the nest of this perilous booty, deepened the shadows elsewhere.

Garth could make out little. His eyes failed to explore the corners, succeeded only in reaching the divan and one or two easy chairs – furniture altogether incongruous in a chemist's laboratory.

Although the water streamed from George's face, he saw the man shiver. It started an expository train of thought. The last time this job had been attempted Kridel had been killed – in this house, almost certainly in this room. He recalled the superstitious fears of many criminals. Perhaps that accounted in a degree for the other's bared nerves.

"May take time," George jerked out again. "If I could only use a drill and a touch of nitro."

He whistled softly.

"None of that rough business here. Good Lord, Simmons, don't let that stuff go off."

Nora leaned forward.

"Scared, George?"

The question brought fire.

"Show me anybody else who'd do this stunt with more nerve."

"Slim must think a lot of you to put you at it twice."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Didn't you fall down on it last time?"

"Ask Slim," he said shortly. "This is the time I'm interested in, and if we pull it off – "

He reached over, tapping the mahogany with ritual precaution.

"If we pull it off, Nora, you're going to quit fooling with me. I've dangled a long time, and we'll have plenty of money then."

Physical greed for a moment drove the uneasiness from his eyes.

"Maybe, when I get the door open, you'll give me that kiss I've been waiting for."

Garth felt shame that he had the impulse to risk his mission for this woman he should have loathed. He wanted to take the burly, glistening throat between his hands. He controlled himself with an effort. But he could not experience for the girl that just loathing.

She had altered subtly. At George's question her form had lost its alertness and had assumed the unyielding lines of a somnambulist; and her voice had the colorless tone of one who speaks out of a dream.

"Maybe when you get it open, George. Time enough to think of that then. I'm not so sure you'll open it. I'm not so sure of your nerve."

"Wait and see," he said. "You're a pretty one to talk about nerve. You look as though you'd seen a ghost."

She sank back in a heap. She screened her face with her hands. George stared.

"Now what – "

"Don't say that, George," she whispered. "Not here. Ever since I've been in this room – it – it doesn't feel right."

She trembled.

"Hurry! I'm afraid here."

"Hold the light up," he said roughly. "What's the matter with you? This isn't a graveyard."

He resumed his manipulation of the knob. Garth noticed that from time to time he glanced quickly over his shoulder at the somber corners of the room.

Nora had, to a certain extent, startled Garth. Her barely audible words still breathed disquietingly in his ears. They had been like a bow drawn across a string too tightly stretched.

She kept her face hidden now while George worked. The only sound was the muffled clicking of the balls in the combination; the only light, the shaft from the lamp which she held unsteadily. The thought of the steel walls added to the oppression of the air. Garth breathed with difficulty. He fancied once that something moved behind the divan. George caught his start and demanded an explanation. He scolded querulously.

"Well," Garth croaked, "I agree with the lady. I don't like the room."

"I looked around," George said.

Nora lowered her arms.

"George," she said, "sometimes you can't see everything."

She straightened. That disquieting, colorless whisper came again.

"I know what it is. That cop was killed here, wasn't he?"

"What do I know about it?" he asked angrily.

She leaned closer and grasped his arm.

"Right here, George. And if he – It must have been just like this – this time of night – when he – George! Can't we turn on the lights?"

He swallowed hard.

"Why not send out a call for the patrol? What do you mean, if he – "

She shivered.

"I don't like places where people have died hard. That's what I felt when I came in here. But you – you're not afraid?"

He turned momentarily from his work. He tried with indifferent success to fill his voice with challenge. Afterwards he looked up expectantly as though he was far from certain the challenge might not be accepted.

"Afraid! A man with a red heart afraid of dead ones! They never come back."

"Don't say that. I know. My mother told me such things. She was Italian. She knew. She saw. George, don't say that. It's like cursing the dead. And he lay right there, didn't he, George, between you and the safe? That's why Slim stayed outside. Maybe Slim killed him. I want to go, too. Let Simmons hold the lamp."

"No," George said. "That thing he wears isn't human company. You stay."

Garth wondered that in that fantastic light the girl's manner should set a cold anxiety rippling along his own nerves. He looked with an unnatural curiosity at the place which she had indicated.

Evidently she had yielded to an excess of terror. In spite of George's command she was trying to pass the lamp to Garth. It slipped from her fingers, and the white shaft circled swiftly downwards. She caught the handle before it reached the floor, but now the only light in the room was a narrow circle which bored into the carpet and exposed a dark, irregular stain.

Nora cried chokingly.

"Blood! George! That's his blood!"

Cursing, George reached forward, caught her arm, and swung the light away from this desolate reminder of tragedy.

"No wonder!" she whispered. "No wonder Slim didn't have the nerve to come back and do those same things. He'd have seen the man he'd killed between him and his work."

Garth could scarcely catch her voice.

"If I thought you had that much nerve, George, I might – I believe I might – "

She broke off abruptly. George stared at her, then turned back and fumbled for the knob.

"Try to keep the light steady, Nora."

There was a beseeching, child-like quality in his tone. He worked with difficulty now. His hands were no longer perfect mechanical tools. They wavered about the knob. His lips twitched. Perspiration thickened on his face. Garth saw drops glitter and fall slowly to the stained carpet.

Garth caught himself paradoxically wishing George to hurry. For a moment he was relieved when a new sound came from the combination, and George with a sigh turned the handle.

"Ready to open," he said.

He swung on Nora.

"Talk about Slim! Crying, Nora? Good Lord – "

"Don't, George," she said. "If I half close my eyes I can see him through my tears, lying here in the shadows. Can't you?"

He clasped his arms about her. He hid his eyes in her hair.

"Hush," he said hoarsely. "And, while Simmons does his work, give me that kiss."

Garth's fingers reached out, then he thought of the frayed piece of paper possibly in the inspector's hands and already urging the night to a successful climax. This anguish, too, he must suffer. So he drew back profoundly shaken.

Nora, however, was protecting her lips.

"You promised – " George began.

"I said if you had that much nerve. But I know you haven't. Even if you had croaked him you wouldn't dare acknowledge it here. Why, George, you're kneeling where he lay."

He threw back his shoulders. He laughed demonstratively.

"What difference does that make? I'm kneeling to you. And let Slim rave. I'll give you your price. You needn't be ashamed to kiss me, Nora. It wasn't Slim. I did it. The cop jumped me from behind that sofa, and I let him have the knife."

He raised his lips expectantly.

Garth didn't understand at first. He only realized with a savage joy that their lips did not touch. Yet he questioned why the big man, instead of answering the temptation of that mouth, half-open and inviting, drooped backwards until he lay stretched on the floor.

George's cry in his ears aroused him, and he saw in the reeling, drunken shaft of light that blood flowed and joined the ancient stain in the carpet.

He arose. He knew what that scream would unloose upon them.

Springing backward, he grasped the handle of the safe and opened the doors.

"Nora," he whispered. "Come here."

She obeyed him with mechanical precision; but when he took the lamp from her listless hand, turning it upward to examine her face, he read in her eyes awakening realization and horror.

He snapped off the light. Still grasping her hand, he seated himself on the floor with his back to the open safe. He drew her down. For a moment he thought she would resist, then she yielded and sank passively to the cushion at his side.

"Why?" she asked.

"They will be here," he said. "There is no way out except through that door which they will use. It is safer to wait here. Why don't they come?"

"They are careful," she whispered back. "They will come slowly. They will take no chances."

He felt the quick shaking of her body.

"I know what I have done," she said, "what I have done to you."

He realized that his hand still grasped hers. He released it gently.

"I understand a little," he answered, "but if you cared enough to accomplish this madness for him, you should have been even less kind to me than you were this afternoon."

"Perhaps," she answered. "Oh, I don't know. I don't know. I was so young. I loved him so much, and my father said his murderer would never be punished – justice must fail. Maybe it was my Italian blood, but I swore over his body the day they buried him that, if there was no other way, I would get justice for the poor boy. We were practically certain it was this gang. I said nothing to my father. Through a girl I had helped I met Slim. It pleased his vanity to have a spy at headquarters. I made him trust me. But I couldn't find out who – Yet sooner or later I knew the time would come. That's why I worked so hard for to-night, why I wouldn't let anything interfere, because I thought in this room – Well! You see – Listen!"